Listen to your body . . .

 I have to say, the 3 day weekend was pretty full on.  I babysat Rosie on Friday - away out of the house by 7, and not back until gone 8 p.m. and then Rosie was still awake at 10 as she had slept in the car coming here from Aber.  I had no chance of "down time".

A rare Llandod picture.  This is now the pharmacy, and the road immediately by it leads down to the Lake.

Saturday we went to Llandod, and then Rosie was pretty full on back at home, and same on Sunday, though the day was broken up going to Brecon, and walking around the mostly empty town.  The Militaria Fair that Keith and I used to do was on in the Market building, so I popped in to say hello to some friends, had BIG hugs with them, and then joined Tam in the Cat Shelter charity shop.  All thoughts of going for a walk were off as it was threatening to rain on and off all day.

One of the huge Victorian houses in the town (which is 95% Victorian architecture, built in a short period to make the most of the Spa wells in the town). I loved the attic window design.

Tam and Jon had bought a huge, nay ENORMOUS tent from Vinted.  She put it (having been checked) in the back of my car, and we needed to get it out for the base to be totally dried off before it went back into the bag.  We managed it, between showers, but gosh, it's not easy to pack!  It's so big you could have a Festival in it!  Fortunately the rain held off long enough.

This was probably once a hotel.

Tam helped me with various jobs I had on my list.  The best thing she did was to change my Smarty phone plan which she had originally set up for 2G because I didn't use my phone much.  However, listening to (many) hours of Podcasts has decreed that I needed more and she upgraded it to 8G for the same money.  That put a smile on my face.  I am late to Podcasts but enjoy them SO MUCH.  Three Ravens is my favourite, and Dan's Snow's History Hit, Medieval Murders, Ramblings, The Poisoners' Cabinet.  Must look for Archaeology ones too.  OMG - just checked and don't know where to start!  Anyway, we sorted out banking too, Vistaprint for my business cards and got a sack (have 3) of FYM up to the top of the paddock for the Winter Squashes whichTam and Rosie sowed yesterday.  Didn't get around to bleeding the radiators, and I didn't sort out my small camera and charging/changing batteries until this morning.  Nearly there though, and Ed and friend carried up the other two sacks of FYM for me.

I felt really tired after lunch, and went for a nap and slept for over 2 hours, so that was the entire afternoon gone (was going to garden).  Tomorrow is another day.  Having Rosie here is exhausting.

I watched the final episode of Outlander last night - on tenterhooks tbh.  It was well done.  I won't spoil it for you in case you haven't watched it, but I do feel absolutely lost without it now.  Will have to buy her last book in case she writes a totally different ending.  We have all been reading the books/watching the series so many years, the characters seem almost like family now.  

Sunday Baking - Banana and Strawberry Loaf Cake

 

If you click on the recipe, it will enlarge and you can read it more easily.

From the latest  Landscape magazine.  I shall make this again.  Started it off at 7.30, and it takes an hour and a half in a mild oven (160 deg.)  Guess what we are eating for breakfast, still warm!  I had a bag of large frozen strawberries in the freezer - had to freeze them because I thought T&R were coming one weekend and got a BIG tray of them. Of course, once frozen they just go to mush and can only be cooked with.  Didn't want them to waste when they couldn't make it, so they came into their own this morning.  I cut down on the sugar content of this as there is natural sugar from the bananas.  

Enjoy!

Oh shoot . . . and a "scary fat" . . .

 I spent yesterday babysitting Rosie at Tam's - a long day as had to leave here at 7 a.m. and we weren't back till nearly 8 p.m. because of stopping for fish and chips in town on the way home.  Then, quickly warming plates, feeding cats etc, and at one point in the evening I saw Rosie carrying my bum bag.  "Heavy" she said.  This morning, is is lost.  Put somewhere by Rosie who of course can't tell us.  I have looked everywhere...  It, of course, has my bank cards in it.  I have looked EVERYWHERE.  Under beds and furniture, in and behind every cupboard.  I have looked all over the piles of everything in the Library, the most likely place.  Will have to start a more indepth search in there and get Tam to dowse for it (she's better than me).  Yet Rosie is more likely to have lost interest and just left it on the floor somewhere.  We had a Bat Alert with Tam screaming and me having to put the lights out and open a window, so that hasn't helped the general confusion.  Rosie is now calling it a "scary fat".  She is coming out with proper sentences now.  Yesterday I had, when I said I was going in the other room for something, she told me "No, that's dangerous, because Mummy is upstairs".  She has been round before . . .

Here is my lovely Verwood Pottery " Dorset Owl" -  an earthenware costrel dating from about the turn of Victorian into Edwardian times.  It would have been taken out into the fields at harvest time, filled with ale, cider or even cold tea.  It has been up on top of a kitchen cupboard, half hidden, all the time we have been there.  It will go to my new Unit - it is time for someone else to enjoy it.  I may part with my wooden antique costrels too.

This morning Tam, Rosie and I have been to a Jumble Sale in Llandod.  Not as I remember them, with donations of clothing piled high on a large square or rectangle of tables often manned by the WI, and everything 6d or a shilling!  This was more like a one table per person indoor car boot sale  I just bought a shabby pine box for £2, which I will polish up and use for display to give a bit of height.  My new display stand arrived yesterday, so I need to assemble that today, ready for the next Fair.

This will be the design on the front of my new business card - it's a photo of a lovely old handmade Welsh quilt, long sold.  

Meanwhile going through the process of freezing my cards, and will phone the Chippy later, in case I left it there as I was sitting on the bench waiting for them to do my order.  After that, the police station . . . but I am SURE I remember seeing Rosie carrying it and she saying it was heavy, but perhaps that was at Tam's and I can follow it as far as the chippy . . .

Update: It was at the chippy.  Last night I was waiting there for about 20 minutes as 6 people with multiple meals in front of me, and I obviously just set it down on the bench beside me after paying.  My poor brain has been so frazzled with baby sitting, an early start, lots of driving etc.  Then today I have been trying to sort out banking, and Vistaprint business cards, getting rid of umpteen NZ 1 second "videos" which I loaded onto the computer and overwhelmed it.  Will have to un-video them on the camera another time.  My poor brain is absolutely frazzled and Rosie was very late to bed last night as slept on the car coming here.  She's been showing her stubborn side today too, little ratbag!  She's just sat down with some mango now. Tomorrow we have to go to to Brecon to get a piece of Uranium glass Tam has found for Jon, who collects it.  I will get a few bits of shopping at Aldi whilst we're there.

Headhunted! Plus wildflowers from my walk.

 

Last autumn, a dealer friend Keith and I knew well, was impressed with my stand at the Autumn Antiques Fair.  He has a shop in the next county, and  said he wished some of his lesser dealers would leave, and then he could offer me a Unit, but . . .  Anyway, I've seen him recently at the small fair I do, and he said nothing about a Unit.  Then this last Builth Fair, another dealer with a shop approached me and wanted me to have Unit again.  He is half an hour's drive away, and I was giving it some thought but went to check out the Shop and was shocked.  Keith and I had a Unit there when I was running my little business pre-Covid.  I am sure much of the stock that was there then - especially the bits hanging from the ceiling! - had bred - there was double the amount of "stuff" in the shop, and it reminded me of the first time Keith and I went into ToysRUs and had to come out as we were SO overwhelmed by the pile it high stock in there.

Pignut.

I thought long and hard about it, and then decided there was nothing to lose from phoning my other dealer friend and seeing if there was a Unit available . . .  Well, I spoke to his business partner and she said he was looking to get in touch with me as a dealer was leaving and space would come available at the end of June.  We had a lovely chat and I am going over next Tuesday, with some recent stock photos, and hopefully I will be in.  Which means restarting my old business again, having some fresh business cards printed, and carrying on with my fossicking around Fleamarkets!

Guelder rose

I am absolutely thrilled to bits and hope it comes to pass...  I really wasn't happy about the other offer as it would mean working a couple of days a month in the shop to reduce the Unit rent too and I hated doing that first time round!

Creeping Buttercup

I think this may be Multi-flowered Buttercup (Ranunculous polyanthemos). 

Hedgerow Crane's-bill?

Probably Common Ramping fumitory (they all seem much of a muchness!).

White Dead Nettle.

Crosswort (Cruciata laevipes).

Cut-leaved Cranesbill.  (Geranium dissectum.)

Ground Ivy.  (Glechoma hederacea).

(Sticky) Groundsel.  (Senecio viscosis) Used to pick this for our budgie!

Bedsocks in May!

 The Daily Express (which I have never bought) is always putting up scare stories of "snow will hit 24 counties tomorro/by Friday" etc.  I don't pay muich attention, but it has been cold enough the past couple of days to think they may actually be right by the weekend!  I have just put the heating on for an hour, and turned my electric blanket on for a warm bed later.  The hotty botty was not enough last night.

Taken on yesterday's walk along the old railway line.  The little May bush looked so pretty.

Today I have been to my patchwork class back near where we used to live. It was good to see my friends again and chat and see what everyone else is working on.  I needed to top up on fuel, and was fortunate to find some at 179.9, which is ten pence cheaper than in town.

More May blossom along the pathway of my walk.  I took some wild flower photos but will put those up tomorrow.

I listened to several podcasts on my journey today, some from Three Ravens, and several from Medieval Murders, which is a bit more cerebral and talks of various aspects of Medieval life and laws.  

Still reading Raynor Winn's Landlines, and about to give my brain a bit of a working planning outings from The Holy Wells of Wales, to give folk a break from church bothering.

I went mad and ordered some Tablet Weaving cards. They cost £8.29, so not too huge a going mad moment!   I know I have some, somewhere in the house, but have looked and looked and can't find them.  When these arrive, the other ones will turn up...

Now, time to go in a warmer room with The Holy Wells of Wales.

St Cynog's church, Merthyr Cynog

 Morning all.  Another cold one.  8 deg. C (46 F) here and I have had the heating on for an hour or so.  Will now reach for the velvet hotty botty to warm just me rather than the rest of the house.  I am trying to get excited about a (cold) walk or some chilly gardening . . .

I have had St Cynog's on my radar for a while.  It has a terrific history attached to it.  Just 2 3/4 miles along a lane from the main road across the Epynts.  In fact, I have a book marker on the page for it in my Pevsner's Guide to Powys, but it's also the page for wonderful Partrishow . . .  St Cynog's was probably a clas (mother church).  Apparently there were once two churches here, but the older one's whereabouts are now unknown, but it is probably the original church here.

It stands in a large circular churchyard, and is believed to be the burial place of St Cynog, who was the eldest (but illegitimate) son of King Brychan, for whom Brycheiniog is named (Breconshire).  I live (just) inside the Breconshire border.  The church was built after the Norman conquest and has a chunky low tower (12th/13th C) and a very long nave.  It was, of course, one of the thousands of churches restored in Victorian times, in this case in 1860/61 by C. Buckeridge.  I found it very plain internally, with the memorial slabs to the gerat and good of the parish outside on the wall.  I - somehow - missed the rare 14th C Piscina and screen.  

The circular stoup dates from around the 12th C.

The plain goblet style font is a similar date.

Plain clear glass windows throughout.  

Priest's door.

A pulpit with restored base, which has replaced the "old and crazy" one.

The greatest and goodest, approaching the altar . . .

Cynog was the offspring of Brychan and Banadlinet the daughter of Anlach, King of Powys, during the time when Brychan was a hostage at Anlach's court.  Violation is no better word than plain rape.  Cynog was baptised at Llangasty Tal-yl-Llyn near to Llangorse (Brychan's palace was nearby at Talgarth).  Brychan gave his son a torque taken from his own arm which was still revered in Breconshire centuries later.  Giraldus Cambrensis described it thus:  "from its weight, colour and texture one would think that it was gold.  It is made in four sections, as you can see from the joins, wrought together artificially by a series of weldings and divided in the middle by a dog's head, which stands erect with its teeth bared.  The local inhabitants consider this to be a most potent relic, and no one would dare to break a promise which he had made when it was held in front of him."

Giraldus also mentions that there was "the mark of a mighty blow, as if someone had hit it with an iron hammer" and indeed once a man tried to break the torque for its gold and was rendered blind for the rest of his life.  Rhys ap Gruffyd stole and hid the torque of St Cynog and hidden it at Dynevor.  Sadly, after this incident the torque was subsequently lost.

There are other folklore style tales associated with the torque and these were still legendary when they were recorded in 1702.  Cynog led a hermit style life as a young man but was appreciated when outlaws known as Ormests were ravaging the country and he saved a widow with several young children, using his torque as a weapon which, when thrown at the leader, disembowelled him!

I don't think we can appreciate quite HOW structurally bad churches were in Victorian times, and why virtual rebuilds were often necessary.  In the early 1800s it was described as: "This church, like most of the other country churches in Breconshire, and we fear in Wales, resembles a large barn, into which something like pens for sheep have been thrown in disorderly regularity to rot . . . the floor is partly of earth and partly flagged, the seats and benches are decayed and broken, the pulpit is old and crazy, what is called the communion table nearly rotten, and the windows are frequently broken."

Extracts in this piece are from The Celtic Christian Sites of the central and southern Marches by Sarah and John Zaluckyj.  A wonderful and well-thumbed book . . .

Well, this won't do.  I shall go out for my walk now.  THe old railway line probably.

Oh, and before I forget, I have just put my name down for a wet felting tutorial in June, with the Spinners and Weavers group I've joined.  Upstairs I have all the "ingredients" for wet felting which I bought at a Quilt Festival a few years back.  Then life got in the way.  I shall try it out once I have gone to this tutorial next month.  This year is the year where I WILL finally learn new skills in crafting.

A challenge

 The morning was housework - stripping winter bedding off the guest bed, deep clean the bedroom, vacuum mattress etc and washing.  New summer bedding back on.  It was cold in the night though - I put the central heating on for an hour last night, but then put it back to 14 at which setting it will kick in if very cold.  It hasn't for months, but it did last night.  No wonder all the cats were using me as a hotty botty!

This was my challenge, the cobbled (hah!) corner behind the greenhouse which has been ignored far too long.  I had NO reason to carry on ignoring it so have given it about an hour and a half of my time this afternoon, and made progress . . .

Willow trees reduced (will have to try and remove the bottom bits), brambles removed, grass and umbellifers and dandelions with 18" leaves all ripped out.  I need to make an appt at the Tip for next week and then I can clear the area beneath the rubbish.  This was two wheelbarrowsful. I think this area will have a covering of good weed membrane and some bark chippings, so at least then nothing can get rooted into and under the cobbles . . .  Yes D, I am looking ahead to when I Can't Do It . . .

Now I am weary.  I've read a bit more of Rynor Winn's "Landlines" - I have to say I would NOT be walking the Highlands with blisters and plasters ripping the skin off my feet.  When Danny was going to walk Hadrian's Wall, I found some blister-proof socks for him and bought him a couple of pairs and they worked a treat.  His mate, in ordinary socks, had blisters from day one.

I am back to my knitting and another challenge - knit the hidden internal band onto the outer - managed it, albeit slowly, and now I am back to knitting the outside again.  I shall go in and finish watching an old film I found yesterday, Tea with Mussolini, filmed in beautiful Florence.